12 comments

Not everyone is works in advertising Adam. I doubt very much that the folks who seem to think dildos and sex toys are more worrying to leave about the house than loaded guns would go through that same process.

It doesn’t say much for the way their mind works. Not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.

I can’t be sure, but my guess is most of the audience that ad was trying to reach probably went upstairs and hid their sex toys a little better. The weapons are probably still sitting in the top drawer.

I now live in Miami and what is scary about the gun situation is that just in one area of the city, Liberty City (made famous by Grand Theft Auto) there have already been 34 murders with guns. Actually the same as the number of reported deaths this year from Afghanistan. This is crazy. Guns in the US seem so everyday and the news reports shootings as an everyday thing making it easy for people to disassociate themselves from the problem. For me, its a numbers thing and the ad seeks to make people think about just themselves and not about all the numbers they see on a daily basis which have become meaningless.

Geordie,
Fair enough I suppose, but it still seems weird to me when you won’t put your guns away to save your child’s life.
But you might put them away if it was embarrassing as the neighbours finding out you and your wife have sex.

It’s not a good ad because it only speaks to people who don’t have guns. To speak to gun owners, you need to wrap your ad in a flag and have it carry a cross while Lee Greenwood sings in the background.

Some day I hope this blog takes up the question of how you undo massive amounts of radio and television disinformation which is something the USA suffers from. A quarter of the population is incapable of having a normal conversation about current events due to their astonishingly misinformed beliefs, and these are the people who own most of the guns. Better ads won’t fix that.

Mark,
I was talking to a Moslem guy in Istanbul about this a few months back.
He said he thinks the Mid-West has the same problem as the Middle East: religious fundamentalism.
That’s why most Turks prefer the European, secular model

Attaturk rocked, no doubt about it. But there is a serious atheist movement in the Midwest, as well. P.Z. Myers, a biology prof at a small Minnesota university has emerged as the American Richard Dawkins.

Once the “greatest” generation has passed, I think you’ll find the States will emerge as at least as freethinking as the UK or Europe.

Would you work on an ad campaign to promote the Church of England? (Didn’t think so.)

Mark,
I think the difference lies a little deeper than that.
All the Puritans (Plymouth Rock, Thanksgiving, The Mayflower) were people who left “godless” England.
People who took religion a lot more seriously than just whether the King wanted a new wife.
And yes, I probably would advertise the C of E, it’s harmless and well-meaning.
I’d advertise pretty much anything that isn’t illegal.
I’m not a moral authority, I do advertising.